Baby Avyonna was a newborn nursing at her mother's breast when Alabama social workers seized her from the hospital and placed her into foster care almost 2 years ago. Now, finally, she is home with her parents Haly Boothe and Anthony Lett.
She was taken by Shelby County Department of Human Resources (DHR) just 3 days after she was born.
There were no allegations of abuse or neglect. Avyonna was taken because DHR said they had a pick-up order. Social workers believed they had the right to take the new baby since the department already had Haly's other 2 children Haydn and Ka'Myia in custody.
During the course of the family's involvement with DHR, it became clear that the department had been planning all along to adopt Avyonna out. It was never about anything that Haly or Anthony did or didn't do. It was a foregone conclusion that the people who were adopting her siblings would adopt Avyonna as well.
It was not until media attention from Health Impact News began to shine the light on what was happening with Shelby County DHR that there was any progress toward getting Avyonna home.

The story of Baby Braelon in Alabama went viral during the summer of 2016, reaching a million people in just the first 24 hours. The baby boy was born to a 14 year-old mother who was a rape victim. When Braelon was born, his grandmother Dee became concerned that DHR was going to try something to take the baby away from his young mother, whom Dee and Rodney had raised since infancy.
Dee was shocked when they witnessed the accused rapist Samuel Woods III and his mother barge into the hospital room uninvited shortly after the baby was born, having somehow bypassed hospital security. They saw the shocked faces of the young mother and family members as Woods scooped the baby from the bassinet like he owned the place. After a brief, uncomfortable conversation, Woods was told to leave.
That encounter was used later that same day as the grounds for DHR to come into the hospital, flanked by hospital security and armed police officers, to kidnap Baby Braelon out of his breastfeeding mother's arms.
It was not until several months later that the Princes were finally able to learn that "inviting the rapist into the hospital room" was the grounds used to seize Baby Braelon that day, and the young mother and her twin brother less than 24 hours later.
Dee was warned not to post their story on social media. She was told to "keep quiet" and "comply." But Dee Prince knew that silence would only enable and embolden the bullies that were her abusers.
Now, she has won - because she dared to trust God and speak out.

An Alabama baby seized more than a year ago from her mother by Shelby County DHR (Department of Human Resources) is to be returned home in a dramatic turnaround of events. Public outcry and media exposure of corruption eventually led to meetings with state DHR officials and a change of venue for Haly Boothe and her husband Anthony Lett’s case. Their case was transferred out of Shelby County, and almost immediately, things began to change.
Now, Avyonna is on her way home.
Avyonna was taken from her parents, Haly and Anthony, when she was only 3 days old. She was a breastfeeding newborn taken from her mother's breast before she ever left the hospital. There was no court order, warrant, or emergency circumstance, but the department mistakenly believed that they had the right to seize children without such, in direct opposition to the 4th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
Caseworkers from the same department seized Avyonna's cousin - Baby Braelon - just one month later from Haly's 14 year old sister who was the alleged victim of a rape.
It was one of the most-read stories covered by the Medical Kidnap division of Health Impact News and read by millions of people who were outraged. The family alleged then that they had been unjustly targeted for years by Shelby County DHR, with multiple family members seized without any evidence of abuse or neglect.
While the grandparents of the Prince family are overjoyed that their granddaughter baby Avyonna will soon be home, they still are not permitted to have visitation with Baby Braelon. Yet, it is reported that the family of the biological father, accused rapist Samuel Woods III, is now being allowed visitation with the baby every other weekend.

On the final day of Alabama's legislative session, Alabama lawmakers passed HB315, the "midwife decriminalization bill." After an amendment was added by Senator Paul Bussman of Cullman, it actually became a CPM (Certified Professional Midwife) licensure bill, and it was placed on Governor Kay Ivey's desk at 9:04 pm Friday night for her signature.
There are a number of problematic issues with this amendment, but this is the most serious for birthing mothers in Alabama:
Women wanting VBACs (Vaginal Birth after Cesarean) are excluded from access to a legal homebirth in Alabama with the newly legalized CPMs. On page 11 of the final bill, which includes the Bussman amendment, VBAC is defined as being "outside the scope of the licensed practice of midwifery."
According to a recent Consumers Report, 90% of women who had a first C-section will end up with a repeat cesarean. Often women who want to have a good chance at a VBAC choose homebirth with a midwife, because the chances of a successful VBAC are much greater in a homebirth setting.
Thanks to Alabama's new midwife law, that is no longer an option.

Sherrie Saunders is a former military medic who has gone public as a whistleblower on the dangers of the anthrax vaccine given to U.S. military personnel. Last year the VAXXED film crew interviewed her and talked about how the military tried to keep her quiet.
Sherrie was in Washington D.C. recently and spoke at the Revolution for Truth rally. She addressed the growing problem of vaccine-injured children and how the most severely injured are becoming a growing problem with families and siblings that struggle to care for them.
Living in Alabama, Sherrie also addressed how DHR (Department of Human Resources, or "Child Protective Services") was taking children away from good parents and putting them into the foster care system where the children are forced to be vaccinated against their will, or the will of their parents. Sometimes children are taken away from parents simply because they disagree with doctors regarding vaccination schedules.

Her court-appointed attorney called it "an offer." Haly Boothe calls it "blackmail." She was devastated by the choice that met her when she went to Shelby County Family Court in Alabama. Her family has been fighting to get 10 month old baby Avyonna back from state custody ever since the Department of Human Resources (DHR) social workers came to the hospital 3 days after her baby was born and took the newborn baby girl from her mother's breast.
At the time, they told her that the reason that they were taking the baby was because the state already had her other 2 children, children that were born to her when she herself was in foster care. She and her grandparents have maintained that the real reason the first 2 children were kept by the state was because she was a foster child when she had them. The choice that was presented to Haly on Friday lends credence to that assertion.
"So let me get this straight, DHR said my only option is to let Avyonna get adopted and they will drop all of the child support and ANY FUTURE children I have DHR will not take?"

A Florida couple is accused of hundreds of sex crimes involving 11 young children in Alabama, authorities said.
The charges leveled against Daniel W. Spurgeon and Jenise R. Spurgeon stem from allegations of abuse sustained by their foster and adopted children when they lived in Alabama years ago, Florence police said.
The allegations have been under investigation since Florida authorities contacted Florence police last July about crimes that occurred in Cape Coral. The Florida investigation led police to believe children in Alabama also may have been abused, said Florence police Sgt. Brad Holmes.
Daniel Spurgeon is charged with 115 counts of first-degree sex abuse, 122 counts of child abuse, four counts of first-degree sodomy, four counts of sexual torture, three counts of domestic violence by strangulation or suffocation, six counts of first-degree rape, 115 counts of enticing a child for immoral purposes, six counts of incest and 11 counts of first-degree human trafficking.
Jenise Spurgeon is charged with 100 counts of child abuse, one count of domestic violence by strangulation of suffocation, 11 counts of first-degree human trafficking, 100 counts of endangering the welfare of a child and 100 counts of enticing a child for immoral purposes.

It's been over two years since our daughter was taken and never returned by Dekalb county DHR worker Ellen Morrow.
She was 15 years old at the time. She is now 18 years old.
My daughter was an honor roll student and softball player in the 10th grade. We dreamed and worked hard towards getting a college scholarship so she could attend Auburn University because she always said that is what she wanted to do when she graduated.
She was a good girl. She has never been in trouble. She had not started dating yet. She was a normal child and DHR destroyed her and our dreams for her future over a cell phone dispute.
The reason that my family was torn apart, according to DHR, was that there was possible risk of neglect in the future if they did not remove her, evidenced by an argument that allegedly occurred the evening before.
That is what it takes to destroy lives and families in Alabama.
DHR did not have my permission to use my family, to violate my God given or my Constitutional rights, nor my family's.
Now I pray that God will use me to help prevent others from going through this abuse at the hands of our own government and this group of unqualified people which it pays to abduct, and traffick human beings. I pray for the Lord to protect us all and put an end to this madness and corruption.

Last week (February 2017) we published the story of Shanley Devlin of Walker County, Alabama, and how her family was torn apart by the Department of Human Resources (DHR). Shanley was removed from the custody of her parents at the age of 14 after she became pregnant during the April 27, 2011 tornadoes. Her parents were housing many people from the neighborhood during the storms.
In spite of the fact that the family wanted to raise the baby in their home, Alabama DHR allegedly charged the parents with “inadequate supervision,” and both their daughter and grandson were placed in foster care. Their daughter Shanley is now 20 years old holding a steady job and has place to live, but because she grew up in foster care, DHR will not allow her son to live with her.
When we posted Shanley's story on our Facebook Page, the story quickly went viral with many people in Alabama sharing their own horror stories with DHR in Alabama on our Facebook Page.
Someone posting as Margaret Morgan Silbernagel and claiming be "a member of the Esc. Co. DHR Board," apparently decided (or was appointed) to stand up for DHR and asserted: "This story cannot be accurate."
But Ms. Silbernagel was apparently not prepared for the firestorm of comments that was about to come her way, as she later admitted: "This conversation has certainly been an eye opener. I do not do what I do for recognition or for any of your approvals."
One of comments came from someone identifying herself as "the former mother-in-law" of the DHR social worker Judy Kitchens' daughter. Judy Kitchens is mentioned in our story as the social worker that removed Shanley and her baby from her parents home. Linda Motes Pullins stated that she did not think Judy Kitchens should be a social worker given the problems she alleges exist in Judy's own family, which she alleges includes a history of drug abuse.

All that Shanley wanted for her 20th birthday on February 22 was to get her son back from DHR, and to no longer be considered a foster child herself. Ashton was born while Shanley was in foster care, and when she was kicked out of her foster home last summer at the age of 19, she was not permitted to take her son with her. Alabama social workers tell her that she cannot get him back at this time because they still consider her a foster child, even though she is legally an adult, living on her own with both a job and an apartment.
Shanley is not accused of any kind of neglect or abuse, so it doesn't make sense to her that Walker County Department of Human Resources (DHR) refuses to allow her to have her son with her.
Shanley was taken out of the home of her parents at the age of 14 because she got pregnant on the night of April 27, 2011, a date that most in the south will never forget, as 252 people lost their lives in the 62 tornadoes across the state of Alabama. Her parents were accused of parental neglect because they had a house full of neighbors that night and did not prevent their daughter from getting pregnant. Her parents and other family members wanted to raise the baby in a loving home, but Alabama DHR did not allow them to raise the baby, and they lost their 14 year old daughter as well.